


Echoes in the Hold

by Clara_Brighet, MokiKaitlyn



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (doesn't that go without saying for Rebels tho? lol), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, But someone had to be doing actual work, Character Study, Comfort, Echo Base (Star Wars), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody Lives, Everything Is Fine And Everyone Lives, F/M, Family, Fluff, Found Family, Healing, Hera sings, Jyn has adopted two kids and needs parenting help, Jyn is there feeling awkward, Kanan Jarrus & Hera Syndulla as Space Parents, No rebels spoilers after s1, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, So there is off-screen character death, That is how the Force Works, The Ghost crew at Echo Base, Unfortunately neither Sabine nor Cassian is here, but the focus is on healing, i haven’t seen any rebels past that, i really like this show, just started this show, not for lack of love, rogue squadron at echo base, sea shanties on the Ghost, the Ghost has guests, the characters are observed by each other and it's great, who better to help than the space parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clara_Brighet/pseuds/Clara_Brighet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MokiKaitlyn/pseuds/MokiKaitlyn
Summary: Rogue Squadron is the last squadron off Echo Base as it falls, and Jyn Erso is not prepared for the responsibilities that entails. Luckily, the crew of the Ghost is here to help. Jyn spends a night with the crew of the Ghost and learns something about family.Or: an excuse to make Hera and her boys sing sea shanties.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Echoes in the Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Rogue squadron still adopted the remnants of Red Squad after the battle of Yavin. Luke is now Rogue 12.
> 
> Everyone is alive and fine and together come the Empire Strikes Back.

Rogue squadron is the last squadron off Hoth as Echo Base falls.

They had to their company 18 capable pilots, 4 auxiliary agents who couldn’t fly, 2 alarmingly young mechanics, a whole mess of droids, and a galley mate. Among them, there were 8 X-wings, 3 Y-wings, 8 working snowspeeders, and a shuttle.

They lost 8 pilots in the fight for Echo base.

Their shuttle they loaned to the third troop transport, whose galley, medbay, and most of their fighters had been knocked out in a firefight and whose route to the rendezvous point would take them well over three weeks. The Rhodian who ran the galley went with them, along with Bhodi, Chirrut, and Baze. How to get the rest of the company out on on their fighters was something to be addressed later.

Later was fast approaching.

The snowspeeders, recently functional, would have to be left behind as they didn’t have hyperdrives. Might be a moot point if many more of them got stepped on.

Jyn Erso was in the hangar, prepping the X-wings for hyperspace alongside Rogue squadron’s two mechanics and three speederless pilots, counting each lost pilot over her com and wondering how many people would fit in one cockpit, when a Twi'lek in pilot’s garb interrupted her flight prep sequence.

“Rogue 1?” 

“That’s me,” Jyn growled, having completely lost track of the flight prep sequence she’d only learned half an hour ago.

The Twi'lek took the the fuel line from her and secured it. 

“Spectre 2. My name is Hera. My team is here to help yours get out. We have a shuttle and a canon. What do you need from me?” 

Jyn licked a burn she’d gotten climbing off the X-Wing’s hull and surveyed the hangar. The east door had been barricaded and they would lose the west soon, if the hangar didn’t cave in first. She swallowed her pride. 

“Help me get these ships out.”

In the end, no one had to share any cockpits. The Twi'lek’s crew included a Mandalorian and a Lasat of all things who held the stormtroopers out of the hangar until they were clear, and from the sounds of it they managed to blow up good portions of the base in the process. Two humans joined their flight prep team and made short work of the ships, leaving Jyn free to direct the returning speeders to their stations. Spectre 6, a human boy who appeared to be a Jedi, ( _like Luke _ , she thought.  _ Not another one_) was laying charges on the snowspeeders as they docked, along with random other vehicles he found in the hangar that they wouldn’t be able to take with them. He also loaded the unused fuel into the Ghost. Smart kid. They must be a scavenger team. Fitting as the last transport out.

Of their eighteen pilots they were down to ten. Bhodi’s exuberant recruiting spree that had made them the largest fighter squadron in the fleet had run its course.  _ Not now. There is time to mourn later _ . That left an unmanned Y-wing. She could fly it herself if she had to, but she’s never been a good pilot. If they’d still had Baze he’d be better at it, but he’d left with Chirrut, as he should have.

The older human, Spectre 1, appeared at her shoulder, carrying crates of salvaged who-knows-what. “Spectre 5 can fly the extra fighter. She’ll bring her in safely.” He kept walking, and Jyn wondered vaguely if he’d even said that out loud.

“Is he a Jedi too?” She asked the Twi'lek, who was securing an astromech in an X-wing.

“Afraid so. How’s that last speeder coming?”

Eventually they got all the surviving speeders in the hanger and all the fighters off the ground. Cassian led the fleet to the rendezvous, possibly minus Rogue 12, who had other plans, as he often did. The rest climbed into the Ghost, just as the west door was breached and the imperial army stormed in. Two lightsabers defended the retreating rogue squadron from blaster bolts. Now that was a useful trick. Why didn’t Luke do that more often?

Echo base crumbled beneath them into so much ice and snow as the Ghost set out on her long roundabout route to the other end of the galaxy, manned by five of the six members of her own crew and the four stragglers of Rogue squadron: herself, two mechanics who were siblings and had taught her a lot of mechanics in the last four hours, and K2, who had been the gunner on Cassian’s snowspeeder, but wasn’t authorized to fly a fighter all by himself.

When they’d made it through the blockade - a feat which greatly increased Jyn’s respect for Hera’s piloting skills - there was nothing for it but to buckle in and wait for the long flight ahead of them, contemplating their losses and their sweaty winter clothes. Not an ideal way to spend the evening.

K2 and Spectre 3, an astromech with a foul mouth called Chopper, were having a rather vulgar argument in the aft gunnery. Most everyone else ended up sitting in relative silence in the common space, having run out of things to do. The younger of the mechanics, a fifteen year old human girl called Mudi, was crying quietly with her brother’s arm around her. The brother, Kett Starrover, had claimed to be eighteen when he joined up, but Jyn had her doubts. Jyn wasn’t one to judge though, and certainly not one to snitch. Her team looked after the two of them well enough.

The pilot and her (husband? Partner? Superior?) emerged from the cockpit before Jyn could think of a way to help the girl. Hera knocked a hand loudly on the doorframe to announce their arrival, which gave the crying mechanic a moment to wipe her nose.

“Well, the course is laid in,” she said, turning so as to put the teenagers gracefully out of her line of sight.

Her husband squeezed next to the younger Jedi on his chair-made-for-one and ruffled his hair.

“We’ll be there in about 43 hours, plus however long it takes us to get around Kessel,” she continued. “We don’t want any imperials on our tail, so we can’t be very direct. We have a spare cabin while Sabine isn’t here, but it only has two bunks. The extra person is gonna have to take a cot. Ezra, why don’t you get our guests some clean blankets.”

Clean blankets were fetched and Kanan made everyone hot tea. Hera took a moment of the chaos to send the younger mechanic, Mudi, to the fresher and gave her some clean clothes, probably belonging to the Mandalorian. She managed a clean outfit for Jyn and Kett as well. They hadn’t lost  _all_ their own clothes in the attack on the base, but what had survived had left in the shuttle with Chirrut and Baze, and the change was received gratefully.

Changing, showering, and finding bunks was a welcome distraction that lasted for all of forty-five minutes. Zeb and Ezra managed to cook a hot meal as well, which extended the group’s activities another half hour. Hardly two hours after escaping the imperial blockade, the combined crew was again in the common space, showered and fed, wrapped in clean blankets and holding new, spicier tea. It was the warmest room on the ship, and where the new tea was.

Jyn was just beginning to wonder how much distraction she could get out of folding all the laundry, and when the fresher would be done with it, when Kett, tactless as ever, decided to bring up the subject everyone else was studiously distracting themselves from.

“We lost Echo base. And so many people.”

Jyn closed her eyes and let out a measured breath. Mudi squeaked.

“They did their duty,” Kanan said. The rebellion will live on, and we’ll make good use of the freedom they gave us.”

“But what will the rebellion do without a base?” he asked.

Kanan sighed. “The rebellion has been without a base before, and she will likely be again. She’ll be alright, kid.”

Silence fell again.

Mudi spoke up after a bit, teary again but composed. “What can we do?”

Jyn was not good at consoling kids. At Mudi’s age Jyn herself was an escaped felon and terrorist, and she and Mudi had very little in the way of life circumstances to connect them. That was a good thing, but it still left Jyn out of her depth.

The captain was watching Mudi with a curious expression. After a moment, to Jyn’s great surprise, Hera began to sing.

“ _I thought I heard the old man say_ ,”

Kanan joined her high tenor with his baritone. “ _Leave her Johnny, leave her_.”

Alone again, “ _it’s a long hard while till your next pay day_ ,”

And Ezra and Zeb joined her. “ _And it’s time for us to leave her_.”

“ _Leave her Johnny, leave her,_  
_Oh Leave her Johnny, leave her,_  
_For the voyage is long and the winds don’t blow,_  
_And it’s time for us to leave her_.”

Jyn knew the song, but didn’t join the family quartet. Hera’s voice was clear and strong, and the boys only accompanied her in the chorus parts. The music was soothing. Besides, Jyn couldn’t sing.

Ezra sat down by the siblings, apparently with the intent of getting them to join in. He actually managed it after a few verses and they sang with the boys, though their voices weren’t as strong. They blended in nicely.

There’s a way to coax a temperature regulator, a noisy sort of instrument, into rhythmic tonalities, and this is often used to accompany these sorts of shanties. Most engine thermometers have a gasket on them for this particular purpose. Jyn had been taught how to play it when she’d been conscripted on a freighter as a child who couldn’t sing and wasn’t tall enough to line dance. An overexcited cooling system was a good companion to the lonely orphan. She checked the readout by her seat and found the regulator, and soon the singers had accompaniment, however modest. The whole ship was humming along with her crew. Jyn saw Hera flash her a smile.

When the song ended Mudi looked like she’d just met the angels. Jyn wondered if the kid had ever heard live music that wasn’t the rebels’ open mic night, which wasn’t exactly a musically gifted company or a very wholesome place for a teenager.

“I miss our soprano,” Ezra said. “She loves that chorus, and she could show you some cool stuff, Mudi.”

“I think Mudi sang very well,” Hera offered.

“I’m happy to finally have some accompaniment that isn’t Chopper’s banging,” Kanan said, as Chopper squawked indignantly. “I never could get the hang of that thing. Thank you, Agent Erso.”

Jyn smiled.

“How  _are_ you doing that?” asked Kett. “Are you tuning the engine fan and exhaust?”

“Yeah. Come here, I’ll show you,” Jyn said, scooting down her bench.

They sang several more songs that evening. Kett turned out to be pretty good at the engine regulator, which left Jyn free to tune the whistle of the exhaust, a much more difficult instrument. K2 professed to not understand organics and their obsession with tonality after the third song and went to power off for the night. Chopper never got tired of being the percussion.

Kanan produced alcohol once the tea ran out, and even some hot chocolate for the non-drinkers. Privately, Jyn thought that Hera had gotten herself quite a useful husband, especially once he’d related the thrilling tale of how they’d stolen champagne from some imperial officers once for their anniversary. She was pretty sure Hera wouldn’t have tolerated the romantic gushing on slightly less brandy, but as it was she was just smiling fondly at him, while he regaled them with his dashing adventures on her behalf. It transpired in the end that his entire plot had been a distraction and Hera was the one who did all the stealing. Kanan just thought that made the story better.

Ezra got Hera to dance with him after a while, a complicated back and forth stomping number that Jyn recognized as Rylothian and which Ezra had clearly learned from Hera. She was quite good. 

On the next song, Hera taught the siblings a much simpler line dance to satisfy their curiosity, during which Jyn was grateful she was occupied with the accompaniment and didn’t have to dance. The robot, however, did join. It was a repeat-after-me style stomping dance with much simpler footwork than Ezra and the captain had been doing before. Their feet made their own soft percussion, the rhythm of which was regularly interrupted by Chopper’s banging his part on the floor in lieu of stomping. The musicality wasn’t the point.

The crew of the Ghost had turned an evening of listless mourning into a celebration of their escape, albeit a bittersweet one. They didn’t diminish the suffering they’d all been through, but gave it space to bloom in the wake of their real victory and their persistent hope. Hera could sing high and beautiful songs about their losses that still looked forward to their victory, and she and her husband taught the teenagers how to express themselves with their whole body without succumbing to their grief. Kanan even taught them dances that he claimed were Jedi in origin, which Jyn had never heard of. They certainly worked to wear the kids out anyway.

They had lost so much, but they would carry on. Kanan was right that the dead had died well, knowing that their work would carry on and ready to die doing what they thought was right. She wished she’d known them as well as these two knew their team, she thought as she watched Ezra and Hera harmonize in Ryl and Zeb and Kanan argue about whether Kanan could sing bass. (He could not).

She knew the original crew of Rogue One well enough, but she knew very little about those who had died. She resolved to change that with those who were left. Starting with these mechanics, who were growing sleepy with sugar and emotion. 

She never had folded the laundry. She would later discover that K2 had done it and made up everyone’s beds before he’d shut down.

Jyn and Zeb were nearly the last to leave the main deck. When they left, Kanan and Hera were still there, swaying gently together to the hum of the hyperdrive, her head under his chin and his arms wrapped around her. Hera was crying.

Zeb walked Jyn to Sabine’s room, which she only remembered she hadn't located yet once she was there. Zeb smiled and nodded and walked off to his own room.

The ship was warm, and they all slept well that night.

* * *

Kanan knows what she’s doing - of course he does. She leads and so he follows. He lends support where he can and he watches and he waits, and when everyone else is gone he stays. He knows, and he is there. There’s a way of making one’s presence _more_ _there_ to people you love that involves doing very little and being very still. Kanan has never fully worked out whether, when he does it, it’s a trick of the Force. He suspects it is not.

He silently asks to hold her (because he’s Touchy like that and she needs it anyway). And she lets him. And for a while they’re just quiet, and warm, and moving and breathing and _still alive_. When Hera finally drops, Kanan keeps swaying and hums a little louder. Holds a little tighter.

They’ve done this before, and they both know they’ll do it again. But it’s better, with someone. Someone to hold the weight while you mourn.

Kanan will cry tomorrow, after their passengers have been delivered safely to the rest of the fleet. After Sabine has helped Hera do a thorough systems check of the Ghost, and Ezra has snuck in his own silent hug that was nearly Kanan’s undoing. After everyone else has gone to bed. And Hera takes her turn shouldering the weight of their collective responsibilities. And they make tea, and sit, and sip it together while the regulator hums.

* * *

The young rebel captain is brave while her squadron falls, and Hera is more that willing to lend her strength and her home to the broken squadron.

The blockade has redoubled its strength now that the base is fallen, and her brave little Ghost faces more of the fleet than all the transports before her. Hera was undaunted. She may not have ever faced a force quite this strong, but then who was it who earned the Blockade Runner its name?

Two of the rescued Rogues are younger than Ezra, and they are frightened and alone. The younger one is deposited in the fresher, along with clean leggings and a shirt. She will let the older pretend she hadn't seen him cry.

Two days later, Kanan's sleeping head in her lap and a rebel dossier in her hands, Hera ponders just how much she'll put up with on behalf of this family she and Kanan have made together.

_Speaking of which_ , she thinks as she hears a crash and Sabine yelling something profane, _it sounds like we may be about ready to head out again._

Kanan frowns in his sleep and Hera runs a soothing hand through his hair. _Not just yet._

* * *

The living Force lives in all things that live, whether they can feel it or not. Most things _can_ feel it, though, even when they can’t recognize it. And on a night like that one, when the belly of their ship is full of people who love and laugh and sing and dance, the force between them glows, and it _sings_. The dancers may not feel it, but they feel their neighbor’s footsteps carry them into the next verse, they hear the harmony before they sing it, and the hope and the sorrow of each one overflows into the others.

Hera may not read minds, but she knows her son’s joy when he pulls her into the dance she taught him, and that’s more than enough for him. There are very few things that can persuade her to dance, let alone in front of strangers, but Ezra is among them. He counts this as a high honor. Although the brandy may have helped. The force works through many things.

The dark pools of the force that had dampened the ship at their departure were chased away, Ezra thinks, by agent Erso’s uncertain affection, Zeb’s patient hospitality, and Hera’s teaching and singing as much as by his and Kanan’s more direct bailing out. Strings of light were spun and threaded through each member of their company, buoyed and woven ever higher by their laughter and companionship. Erso even got the Ghost to sing along with them.

With gentle light, grief can take root and grow; cultivated with care and understanding, never allowed to choke out the sun, until it is strong enough to live in the light and blanket the warmth of the ground. Grief is a seed; it is born from and it grows into love.

It is easier, and in some ways less painful, to give in and succumb to the misery. And when hurt and tragedy are shared, they are sharper, and they cut deeper. Deep cuts help seeds take root, and all things are more bearable in company.

Ezra himself had technically lost nothing. He had never met the lost pilots and had spent all of two cold and miserable days on Echo base before it fell. The most fun he’d had there had been helping Sabine to blow it up. But Ezra was a Jedi, and more than that he was a friend, a brother, and a son to the people of this crew. Their grief was his, and he felt it to the bottom of his soul.

So he drew in the light and shared it with everyone else before himself. He taught the frightened kids how to sing and he helped Kanan’s patient hands work the broken ground. He made Hera dance in time with the hum of the engines and kept Zeb out of the limelight he didn’t want. And when he felt Hera’s heart break with the weight of the evening he brought their young guests to their beds, showing Mudi to Sabine’s room and letting Kett have his own bunk. And he climbed by his own route into the nose gun and meditated on the nature of the unifying force.

Tomorrow there would be more work to do. He and Zeb had salvaged quite a haul from Echo base and they wanted to claim their share before they showed it to Sabine. He was pretty sure he saw Hera nick some power cells too, and if he caught her in a good mood and asked very nicely she might share. And, sometime when Kanan wasn’t carrying the emotional weight of half the ship, Ezra really needed a hug. Kanan probably needed it too. And then there would be ships to bring in, false trails to lay, and supplies to distribute. But then, this was all the work of the Force.

After all, what is the unifying Force if not love?

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that Star Wars drinking songs do exist, but I don’t know any of them. Just pretend they sang something else appropriate.
> 
> Previously titled The Family That Slays Together, because Moki has a terrible sense of humor.


End file.
